


Superheros are born to be made

by Moonlit_Lampshade



Category: The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Cuddling & Snuggling, Gen, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-26
Updated: 2015-04-26
Packaged: 2018-03-25 21:12:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3825229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moonlit_Lampshade/pseuds/Moonlit_Lampshade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inspired by <a href="http://pensversusswords.tumblr.com/post/116327289037/sometimes-i-make-myself-emotional-by-thinking">this post</a>:</p><blockquote>
  <p>sometimes i make myself emotional by thinking about younger versions of superheroes meeting their older selves</p>
</blockquote>Little Tony meets Future-him (and Captain America!).<p>Tony in the present struggles with memory. Luckily Cap's there to help.</p><p>(Howard is a douchebag no matter how you slice it.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Superheros are born to be made

**Author's Note:**

> Shout-out to my betas, MusicalLuna and Emma_Sea. I didn't actually do a final go-through before posting this here, so any mistakes left are all on me.

“Who’s that?” Tony asks from behind Captain America’s legs. _Not_ that he’s hiding or anything. He was behind Captain America when the stranger walked in, so he’s behind Cap’s legs.

“That’s Iron Man,” Cap tells him, stepping to the side. Tony follows, _not_ because he’s hiding behind his legs - he’s not a _baby_ \- he was going to walk in that direction anyway, to…to get a better look. Cap just happened to go in the same direction, at the same time he did.

Cap smiles down at him, which does _not_ make his insides feel all warm and jumpy. “We talked about him, remember?”

Tony gives him a look. Sure, he may be Cap, but Tony’s not a _baby_ . Of _course_ he remembers.

The man’s face mask retracts, revealing…someone who looks kind of like Dad, but also not really.

He almost bonks himself on the head. _Duh. Cap said you’re in the future, and that’s future you. Of_ course _he looks like Dad, stupid_.

He looks into his…future-his eyes, and find he can’t maintain eye contact. Once again, the strangeness of his situation hits him, and he freezes. He’s not actually sure that he’s in the future, is he? What if this is some weird dream? What if this is some trick?

“Hey, kid,” Future-him finally says. He peeks back around Cap’s legs, before forcing himself to resolutely step around so he’s facing future-him.

“Hello, sir,” he finally says, then pauses because _that was weird_ . His future self looks as uncomfortable as he feels. _Good job, boy. You failed to act like a normal human being even with yourself._

Future-him smiles that sort of smile people smile when they really don’t want to smile, but have to smile anyways. “Why don’t you just call me Tony?”

Tony gives him this look of disdain. “Then we’ll both be Tony and that’ll be confusing for Captain America,” he tells him.

He hears muffled choking from his side and glances up to see Cap stifling laughter. He stiffens and swats at Cap’s leg in annoyance before he can stop himself, and freezes when he realizes what he’s done.

 _Stupid._ Stupid. _Now Cap’s going to hate you, and it’s all your fault for being so stupid._

“Hey, kid,” finally breaks through. He looks up into Future-him’s face and cringes at the look of…of _understanding_ he sees there. _He knows_ . _He knows what I’m thinking. Duh, he’s you. You’re him. Of course he knows._

He can’t decide if the fact that _it’s him_ makes it better or worse.

“Kid,” Future-him says again. “Hey, it’s all right. Captain America’s a big strong superhero. He can take a bit of rough-housing,” he says as he, too, play-punches at Cap’s arm.

Cap starts, and hurries to say, “Y-yeah. No, totally. Heck, I’ve hurt myself worse tripping over Thor’s hammer. Guy leaves it around everywhere, and since he’s the only one who can move it, the rest of us always end up tripping all over it.”

Future-him snorts, causing Tony to turn his head in Future-him’s direction. Future-him gives Cap a disdainful look. “Speak for yourself. I’ve never once tripped over Mjolnir.”

“You sure about that?” Steve shoots back.

Tony looks in Cap’s direction, then back at Future-him, and back at Cap. He sits heavily down on the floor, part of him chastising himself for acting like a baby, but it’s all _so much,_ and just _too overwhelming_ , and just… _what was going on?_

That apparently gets their attention. “Hey, you all right, little me?”

 _Yes_ , he tells himself to say.

“No,” is what, to his horror, comes out of his mouth. “No,” he says again, louder. _Shut up,_ he thinks. “It’s _not_ okay,” he says. “This is confusing, and Cap’s here, so that’s nice, but I don’t know what’s going on, and I want to go back, I don’t want to be stuck here, and what is Mom and Jarvis going to think when they can’t find me, and I’m never going to finish my robots, and if I’m stuck _here_ , and _you’re_ here, too, then…I don’t know! This is really confusing and I don’t get it but it just feels wrong, like the world’s going to end, and _I hate feeling like this_.”

He’s not crying he’s not crying HE’S NOT GOING TO CRY. MAN UP, BOY. STOP YOUR PANSY-ASS SNIVELING. STARK MEN ARE MADE OF IRON. ONLY THE USELESS CRY. YOU’RE A STARK, ACT LIKE IT.

 _Shut up_ , he thinks viciously, staring angrily at the ground and trying not to blink so the stupid prickles will go away. _Shut UP_.

He jerks at the sudden warm weight on his shoulder, but lets himself be swept into Cap’s embrace. Thankfully, the surprise seems to have driven the tears away, but he stays where he is, with his head buried in Cap’s shoulder, just in case the stupid tears decide to try to come back.

It’s almost hypnotic, the gentle strokes down his back, lingering enough for him to feel a trail of warmth as it progresses downward, before lifting away and starting again at the top. Top, down, bottom, empty air. Top, down, bottom, empty air.

He’s not sure how long he stands there, but Future-him breaks in with a “Hey, wanna watch a movie?”

He feels Cap shift around him - probably to shoot Future-him an exasperated look. Future-him seems to get a lot of those from Cap.

“Can Cap come along?” Tony mumbles into Cap’s shoulder.

Future-him lets out a burst of laughter. “Yeah, why not. More the merrier. Come along, Capsicle. To the media room.”

~*~

God, what a fucking day. Surprise science, unexpected portals, _totally_ unprecedented visit from his past self. Who was, indeed, his past self, and not a tiny him from another dimension or something. He’d run the tests himself, and Reed had confirmed it.

God, what a total mess. This must be playing havoc on the whole timestream continuity issues and whatnot. Although so far he didn’t seem to be fading or anything, so that’s probably a good sign. Reed had assured him there should be no issues; however the portal was designed, it should send mini-him right back to where he left off, none the wiser to his little jaunt through time.

Tony looks at mini-him. Had he really been such a mess of inadequacy issues and daddy issues at that age? Oh, who was he kidding. In many ways, he still was a mess of inadequacy issues and daddy issues, even at his illustrious age of thirty-something. He suppressed a snort. Yeah, he knew he was judging himself. Fucked up, right?

Actually, this isn’t even the weirdest thing that happened this week. How is this his life?

Not that he’d trade it for anything. And…watching mini-him and Cap cuddle on the couch watching old Disney movies…causes some unsettling stirrings of, of _emotion_ in his chest. _Whoa there. Slow down, nostalgia. Or not really nostalgia, but that rumbling of longing for what might have been.* Wow, Stark_ , he thinks ruefully. _Growing sentimental in your old age.**_

 _But…_ that traitorous part of him continues, _…it’s nice_. _And you know it._

He does. That’s the problem.

“I’m going to go make more popcorn,” Cap announces, startling Tony out of his woolgathering.

“You go do that, Capsicle,” Tony calls after him.

Steve gives him a gesture that hints at being rude - of course, Cap can’t risk actually ruining the kid if he *ahem* mini-him happened to be looking in that direction - as he leaves the room. God, all this him/mini-hims is getting confusing. Sooner they get this fixed, the sooner they can go back to pretending no one has any issues and everything is peachy-keen.

Tony glances over at mini-him, and finds himself staring at the kid. He’s so young, he suddenly thinks. So young, too young, even, to be at Howard’s tender mercies. Briefly, he wonders if maybe he’d be better off keeping mini-him here, away from Howard. But now, that actually _would_ screw up space-time and whatever, and then the world would end and it really would be his fault.

But he can still dream.

“Hey, kid,” he finds himself saying. _No, God, what are you doing, don’t do that_. Too late. Mini-him looks over, expression carefully blank. Apprehensive.

“You–” he starts, then stops. He sits there, searching for words, and comes up blank. _There’s nothing I can say,_ he realizes. _Nothing that would make sense to him then. Nothing that would make sense to him for many many years, until not even a few years ago._ He can’t force his past self not to make the mistakes he’s made, because this wisdom, such as it were, that he has now comes from the mistakes he’s made, from the lessons he’s learned from it, from what he’s endured, overcome.

“You’re amazing,” he finally chokes out. “You know that, right? No, silly me, of course you don’t. Howard’s too loud in your life and in your head. But you listen to me, you’re amazing, and don’t you ever forget that. And one day, you’re going to grow up to be a superhero, just like Captain America. And Cap will be proud of you, but more importantly, you’ll be proud of yourself. It won’t be easy, God, it never was easy. But one day, you’ll get here.”

He sits there, breathing hard like he ran a marathon, trying to hold himself together because God, how would the kid react if he fell apart?

He’s aware of shuffling, and looks up in time to see mini-him crawling across the couch to cuddle into his lap.

They sit there in silence, the only sound from the movie running in the background. After a while, Cap comes silently back in the room - too long to have just gone to make popcorn, really, he must have seen it all, and held back, before deciding to come back in - and sits down on the couch, a respectable distance away before scooting over to cuddle up to the two of them.

They remain like that until Reed comes to announce that he’s finished calibrating the machine to send mini-him back.

~*~

He’s silent for a long time. Steve stands back quietly, watching Tony stare out the window without really seeing anything.

It was emotionally trying for all of them, but the two of them especially. But it also seems to have done Tony some good. He seems…lighter, somehow.

“I wanted to say something to him, you know,” Tony finally says without turning around. “I wanted to come up with some cosmically profound piece of advice he could take with him, carry with him, bring back to me. But I couldn’t come up with anything. Nothing I said to him would have made sense, because they only do because I now have the life experiences to back it up. Me telling him things would be…well, maybe not okay, but better one day…times were, you could have told me that morning to night, and I would not have been able to believe you. And there was a time when I thought things _were_ better, were the best they’d ever be, but looking back…they so were not.” He finally turns around and looks Steve in the eye. “But I think I somehow managed to anyway. I remember a dream. I’m hanging out with Captain America, and he tells me that one day, I’m going to grow up to be a superhero, just like him. And that I’m amazing and he’s proud of me. And I remembered it as just a dream, but God, it was amazing. It carried me through some dark times. I always did think I was doing the best I could, you know, but even when I’d learn that I was wrong…I’d just figure out how I could do better, and because I kept remembering that dream, I _knew_ that one day, I’d figure it out, and that I’d be a superhero like Captain America, and that he’d be proud of me.”

Steve smiles and steps close and draws Tony into his arms. “And I am, you know. Proud of you. So, so, very proud of you.”

**Author's Note:**

> *The word for a longing for what might have been is “Sehnsucht,” by the way
> 
> **And we all know Tony is a lying liar he’s a sentimental fool even in his not-old-age *looks pointedly at the engine he never finishes building bc that was the last thing he and his dad worked on, all of the dad stuff he has, the fact that he has a holographic portrait of his dad just randomly in his workshop, that he wears his dad’s old robe* need I go on?
> 
> Originally, I was going to have Steve be the one who said the “you’re going to grow up to be a superhero” line, but I dunno, I just kind of went with the flow and it ended up being Tony’s line.
> 
> I was going to try to keep it gen, but then some implied Stony kind of slipped in cuz I guess that's how I roll. 
> 
> [[Originally posted on tumblr [here](http://rendingrosencrantz.tumblr.com/post/116371312006/pensversusswords-sometimes-i-make-myself)]]


End file.
